Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Why are you offering these Office Hour sessions?

A. Often we dancers get stuck in habits or the same old moves that prevent us from seeing all sides of the dance. The major benefit of taking a session is having someone help build your self-awareness and provide a guided practice in an accountable, yet encouraging environment. Personally, my goal is to offer a time for swing dancers to develop their skills by using a more direct approach.

Q. I’m not sure I’m ready if I should take Office Hour sessions. How do I know?

A. Given that you are asking this question may even point that you are ready. Generally, I recommend dancers who are interested to have a few lessons under their belt so that they may get the most of these sessions. That said any dance student who is eager to learn is more than welcome to sign-up.

Q.You say that I should bring my own topics/questions to these sessions. What happens if I don’t bring any questions to the session?

A. That’s 100% okay. Often times I have dancers asking me for advice. If there are no specific questions, we’ll just social dance a little bit so we can make some observations about your dancing. Then we’ll dig in details in real-time where I will show how you may make adjustments and how those can change the course of the dance.

Q. I really want to learn a line dance (Shim Sham, Tranky Doo, Big Apple, etc). Can I learn this here?

A. Yes! If this is something you’d like to focus on, I highly recommend that you schedule at least ½ hour session if you haven’t had a chance to try these dances before. Each of those dances take about 1, 2 or 3 hours just to learn (respectively) and then time to practice and build muscle memory. So in these cases it may be beneficial to schedule a full hour lesson with me.

Cancellation Policy

Like most businesses, I prefer that cancellations did not happen, however there are times where they may be inevitable. Cancellations are OK as long as they are communicated 72 hours prior to the scheduled engagement. This means if the scheduled lesson is on Thursday, then the latest I expect a cancellation is Monday evening.

72 hours allows me to re-fill the cancelled slot. Cancellations AFTER the 72-hour period should be rescheduled to account for the lost time. Contact me directly at 937-417-2920 with questions regarding rescheduling.

We are excited for Dayton Swing Smackdown, coming up this weekend! If you’ve never attended, you really should. It is a fantastic event, a great place that encourages and inspires all levels of dancers, and is a competition that celebrates the huge effort it takes to work on a Lindy Hop team. It’s a wonderful event for the Midwest region, showcasing what our many, varied swing scenes have to offer while allowing all levels to have a voice in the team competition.

Josh Forbes and all the organizers, past and present have worked hard to create an event that is supportive, enjoyable, and encouraging, while still being a competition. The team competition is always lively, entertaining and bursting with creativity. It is great to watch dancers that are just discovering Lindy Hop to perform on teams along with seasoned dancers. It is such a scene-building and spirit-boosting event. We are always excited and amazed to see where Lindy Hop has taken our fellow competitors. Come out and dance with us this weekend, or just come for the show.

This year is especially meaningful to us as we will be passing the torch and plan to no longer be captains of Team SwingColumbus once the season is over. It’s been a great 9 years. 9 years of choosing music, flailing aerials, crooked lines, picking costumes, changing partners, soldier boy dances, gangbusters, extra follows, blowing bubblegum, crafting Rube Goldberg machines, and holding that swingout line – how quickly the time has gone! We will still plan to be a part of Dayton Swing Smackdown, as we doubledown on our dancing, teaching, and competing together. Cheers!

Here are a handful of routines that have inspired us over the years:

2011- UD Swing Club

2012- Miami Swing Syndicate

2012- OSU Jitterbucks

2013- Rhythm Cats

2015- CTA Blue Line

And certainly we could not forget, the year we were not able to bring the trophy home:2010- Hoosier Hot Shots

Dayton Swing Smackdown and the team competitors have always motivated, challenged, and inspired us. They have constantly kept us on our toes, causing us to keep pushing our team goals and creativity. Thank you!!

A huge Thank you to all our team members, past and present:

Mandy Agler

Cristina Amurao

Erwin Amurao

Christina Austin

Kat Barnes

Danny Beyrer

Binaebi Calkins

Gail Clendenin

Lee Conley

Robert Cooper

Becky Daskalova

Aleks Daskalov

Erik Hernandez

Jonathan Howard

Daniel Hoy

Hew Keller

Rachel Keller

Viktor Lillard

Cal Lin

Ali Lodico

Caitlin Martin

David Martin

Angela Jayne Michell

Crystal Nakatsu

Desiree Roffers

Josh Sarkar

Brandon Schott

Stanley Steers

Anna Young

Theresa Wong

CBUS HO! See you on the dance floor!

Shannon & Mark

For the first 4 months of 2013, Shannon and I coached our team through two competitions and successfully completed another undefeated season! This year brought a number of challenges along with the added pressure to match the success of our Back Bay Shuffle routine.

Because we’ve been asked on numerous occasions on how we do choreography, we have offered some insights about this year’s process.

Most things are in order, but there are still a few kinks we are working out especially if you are using Internet Explorer – I”d recommend using another browser like Firefox, Safari, etc for your own viewing pleasures.

Thank You

A big thank you to Russell Maltempo who has hosted our old website for many years. Thank you for your continued support and allowing the Lindyroos to be on the web for the first time! You can visit his website here: http://www.russellmaltempo.com/

Another big thanks to Binaebi Akah who has spearheaded the development of our new website and kick-started us to update to WordPress. You’ve done an amazing job and we truly appreciate your efforts in getting this website in order. You can visit her website here: http://www.siriomi.com/

We are very excited to be teaching a workshop for OSU– especially since we get to cover such an awesome span of Lindy Hop history. So come join us and we will take you Lindy hopping through time. Below are the details on the classes: Continue reading “Time Warp Swing”→

Collegiate Shag is a lively high-energy swing dance that developed in southern USA (most likely New Orleans) in the 1920s, and was made popular by college students, hence the name “collegiate”. Full of hops and kicks, and danced to medium or fast tempos, it has a style that is recognisably ‘jitterbug’. It is danced in a closed position hold, similar to most ballroom dances, but also includes open and separating elements.

In its most popular form today, it has a 6-beat basic step that has a “slow, slow, quick-quick” rhythm similar to Fox Trot. This form is sometimes called Double Shag (because of the two “slow” steps), but there are also Single and Triple forms of Collegiate Shag. There are other dances known as “shag” dances, including Carolina Shag and St Louis Shag, but these are vastly different.